Hand held repeaters are known in the prior art of a semi-automatic or automatic design, having a bolt or movable slide that strips a round from a magazine. The slide or bolt is driven to the rear from its battery position upon firing, extracting the spent round from the firing chamber, which is then ejected from the firearm by means of an ejector. The bolt face or slide face is engineered to encapsulate the base or rim of a specific round, determined by the diameter of the rim for safety and function purposes.
This invention relates in general to the construction of firearms and, in particular, to the construction of the bolt or slide area called the face. Typically, this face area is manufactured as an integral part of the bolt or slide, restricting the use of these major components to a specific caliber or calibers having the same rim dimension. Other components frequently can be used in the manufacture of firearms of the same basic type, the difference being the caliber, magazine capacity, sighting arrangements or other features where the same slide or bolt could be used except for their being restricted to a specific caliber by the bolt or slide face area.
The invention takes into the account the high cost of manufacturing the slide or bolt as a component, the need to decrease inventory cost where other components are utilized in the production of a variety of firearms and the inventory of slides needs to be kept high to accommodate the varying demands, the need of militaries to inventory a variety of caliber firearms for special purposes, the cost of replacing firearms with new ones, should a new caliber be desired as a replacement and the desire of an end user to be able to change calibers for different shooting applications.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to provide a simplified firearm construction having a readily interchangeable bolt face.
Another object of the invention is to provide a simplified construction for an interchangeable bolt face insert.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved firearm construction which reduces the cost of the spare parts inventory.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved firearm, whose slide or bolt may readily be converted to use a different caliber cartridge.